Nowinski (Ira) photographs of Northern California Jewish Life, 1983-1984

Ira Nowinski is a photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The collection contains photographs of six pioneer Jewish cemeteries of the California Mother Lode that Nowinski took in 1984 under the auspices of the Judah L. Magnes Museum’s Commission for the Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks. The cemeteries are located in Jackson, Mokelumne Hill, Sonora, Placerville, Grass Valley, and Nevada City, California. The collection also includes 59 photographic contact sheets and 1930 photographic negatives of various California Jewish subjects that Nowinski photographed in 1983, including the Jewish Home for the Aged; Barbara Boxer; San Francisco Supervisor Quentin Kopp; Temple Emanu-El; a bar mitzvah rehearsal in Alameda; Seymour Fromer and the Judah L. Magnes Museum; the site of the former Bush Street Temple; Cissy Swig; Temple Beth Sholom in San Leandro; the staff of the Jewish Bulletin; Neil and Joel Folberg; a Soviet Jewry Movement street fair; Hanukkah in Union Square; the funeral of Rabbi Saul White; Yitzhak Sharon at a local Bay Area Jewish school; an anti-Israel rally; a Jewish National Fund Israeli Ballet reception; and the artist Harold Paris at work. There are also 48 photographic contact sheets and 1638 photographic negatives of images that Nowinski took of San Francisco’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services in 1984. The collection includes one photograph taken in 1984 by Nowinski of sculptor George Segal’s Holocaust Memorial at San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum.